Jonathan Meese

Jonathan Meese was born in 1970, in Tokyo, Japan. He attended Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, but he left when the Contemporary Fine Arts gallery in Berlin noticed his work. In 1998, Meese presented one of his early installation works at the first Berlin Biennale. Since then, Meese has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout Germany, London and Paris. Meese’s first major solo exhibition in the United States took place in 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, FL. Included in the exhibition were works blending collage and hieroglyphics together with a variety of sculptures. Meese collaborated with a number of other painters, including Tim Berresheim, Daniel Richter and with composer Karlheinz Essl on an installation shown at the Essl Museum in Vienna. Meese’s works frequently cross numerous media lines and include drawings, collages and writing. As a performance artist, Meese has written and starred in theater productions, including Die Frau: Dr. Poundaddylein – Dr. Ezodysseusszeusuzur. He created a stage design for the opera Dionysus for the Salzburg Festival in 2010. Meese’s personal interests, including horror films, comic books, Outsider Art, and medieval crusades, are often shown in his works. German Expressionism reflecting social discontent and the horrific realities of war regularly forms the basis for Meese’s artwork. While self-portraits are a common component in many of Meese’s works, his image is frequently transformed through a variety of characters, including divas and demons. These characters are commonly used to explore the reality of power. As a collective, Meese’s works make gripping narratives. Meese is currently based in both Berlin and Hamburg.